Vatican rejects Argentine accusations against Pope Francis

St. Peter's Basilica is seen in the background as daily life returns to normal two days after Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected with the name of Pope Francis, Friday, March 15, 2013. Pope Francis has paid a heartfelt tribute to his predecessor Benedict XVI, saying his faith and teaching had "enriched and invigorated" the Catholic Church and would remain its spiritual patrimony forever.

Oded Balilty, Associated Press

Summary

The Vatican lashed out Friday at what it called a "defamatory" and "anti-clerical left-wing" campaign to discredit Pope Francis over his actions during Argentina's 1976-1983 military junta, saying no credible accusation had ever stuck against the new pope.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican lashed out Friday at what it called a "defamatory" and "anti-clerical left-wing" campaign to discredit Pope Francis over his actions during Argentina's 1976-1983 military junta, saying no credible accusation had ever stuck against the new pope.

While the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio, like most other Argentines, failed to openly confront the murderous dictatorship, human rights activists differ on how much responsibility he personally deserves. Bergoglio ran the Jesuit order in Argentina during the dictatorship.

The Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi noted Friday that a Jesuit who was kidnapped during the dictatorship in a case that involved Bergoglio had issued a statement earlier in the day saying the two had reconciled.

Lombardi also noted that Argentine courts had never accused Bergoglio of any crime and that, on the contrary, there is ample evidence of the role he played protecting people from the military as it kidnapped and killed thousands of people in a "dirty war" to eliminate leftist opponents.

He said the accusations were made long ago "by anti-clerical left-wing elements to attack the church and must be decisively rejected."

Lombardi's statement and the accusation behind it were an interruption in the honeymoon that Francis has enjoyed since his remarkable election as pope on Wednesday, when even his choice of footwear — his old black shoes rather than the typical papal red — was noted as a sign of his simplicity and humility.

On his first day as pope, Francis slipped out of the Vatican to settle the bill at the hotel where he had stayed before the conclave, returning to deliver his first homily as pope.

On Friday, he slipped out again to visit an ailing Argentine cardinal, Jorge Mejia, who had a heart attack on Wednesday and was being cared for at Rome's Pius XI hospital, Vatican Radio reported. Francis had told cardinals of Mijia's illness earlier in the day in an unscripted aside during his audience with them.

The accusations of Bergoglio's past are clashing with the upbeat narrative unfolding during Francis' first few days as pope in Rome. And Lombardi clearly felt that he needed to say something to try to put an end to them — even if in doing so he gave the story further legs.

The most damning accusation against Bergoglio is that as the military junta took over in 1976, he withdrew his support for two slum priests whose activist colleagues in the liberation theology movement were disappearing. The priests were then kidnapped and tortured at the Navy Mechanics School, which the junta used as a clandestine prison.

Bergoglio said he had told the priests — Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics — to give up their slum work for their own safety, and they refused. Yorio later accused Bergoglio of effectively delivering them to the death squads by declining to publicly endorse their work. Yorio is now dead.

Jalics, who had maintained silence about the events, on Friday issued a statement saying he had spoken with Bergoglio years later, that the two had celebrated Mass together and hugged "solemnly."

"I am reconciled to the events and consider the matter to be closed," he said.

Bergoglio in 2010 revealed his side of the story to his official biographer Sergio Rubin: that he had gone to extraordinary, behind-the-scenes lengths to save the men.

The Jesuit leader persuaded the family priest of feared dictator Jorge Videla to call in sick so that he could say Mass instead. Once inside the junta leader's home, Bergoglio privately appealed for mercy, Rubin wrote.

Lombardi said the airing of the accusations in recent days in the press following Francis' election was "characterized by a campaign that's often slanderous and defamatory."

Popular Comments

I am wondering if "no fit in SG" carefully read the article. It appears,
based on the reporting, that the Vatican did investigate and found no substance
to the allegations. I would ask "no fit in SG" to consider the
following. You are
More..

11:23 a.m. March 15, 2013

Top comment

VST

Bountiful, UT

@no fit in SG obviously did not read the article. Does he/she have a veiled
agenda in asking such questions without accurately understanding what was
answered fully in the article?